Problem Statement for Renumbering IPv6 Hosts with Static Addresses in Enterprise Networks
RFC 6866
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) B. Carpenter
Request for Comments: 6866 Univ. of Auckland
Category: Informational S. Jiang
ISSN: 2070-1721 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
February 2013
Problem Statement for Renumbering IPv6 Hosts
with Static Addresses in Enterprise Networks
Abstract
This document analyses the problems of updating the IPv6 addresses of
hosts in enterprise networks that, for operational reasons, require
static addresses.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6866.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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RFC 6866 Renumbering Static Addresses February 2013
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Analysis ........................................................3
2.1. Static Addresses Imply Static Prefixes .....................3
2.2. Other Hosts Need Literal Address ...........................4
2.3. Static Server Addresses ....................................5
2.4. Static Virtual Machine Addresses ...........................6
2.5. Asset Management and Security Tracing ......................6
2.6. Primitive Software Licensing ...............................7
2.7. Network Elements ...........................................7
2.8. Access Control Lists .......................................7
2.9. Management Aspects .........................................8
3. Summary of Problem Statement ....................................8
4. Security Considerations .........................................9
5. Acknowledgements ...............................................10
6. Informative References .........................................10
1. Introduction
A problem that is frequently mentioned in discussions of renumbering
enterprise networks [RFC5887] [RFC6879] [GAP-ANALYSIS] is that of
statically assigned addresses. The scope of the present document is
to analyse the problems caused for enterprise networks during
renumbering by static addresses and to identify related gaps in
existing technology. Some aspects also apply to small office and
home networks, but these are not the intended scope of the document.
A static address can be defined as an IP address that is intended by
the network manager to remain constant over a long period of time,
possibly many years, regardless of system restarts or any other
unpredictable events. Static addressing often implies manual address
assignment, including manual preparation of configuration scripts.
An implication of hosts having static addresses is that subnets must
have static prefixes, which also requires analysis.
In a sense, the issue of static addresses is a result of history. As
discussed in Section 3.2 of [RFC6250], various properties of IP
addresses that have long been assumed by programmers and operators
are no longer true today, although they were true when almost all
addresses were manually assigned. In some cases, the resulting
operational difficulties are avoided by static addressing.
Although static addressing is, in general, problematic for
renumbering, hosts inside an enterprise may have static addresses for
a number of operational reasons:
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RFC 6866 Renumbering Static Addresses February 2013
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